No Place for a Bookworm

My motherly instinct has not led me to motivate my daughter enough into the book world. I didn’t do enough bed-time reading to her. I didn’t buy her enough books. I didn’t take her to the library enough. I also didn’t feel particularly guilty when I heard people talking about how important to give your children a habit of reading as early as when they are still in the womb.

My instinct has been proven right once again by a research result that I read recently. It points out that bringing your children to the world of books too early hinders their development in the real world. Makes sense to me! For example, at his own and natural pace, a child can have so much more fun getting to know the concept of water his own way. The different form and shapes of water, the look, the feel, the taste and the touch... ... But if he reads very earlier on in books about the river, sea and ocean, his feeling elements will not be put into active play because the things he sees, hear and touch have been defined, previously and predominantly, by words.

The best to me is to let them discover the world of books as one part of the world. It’s not the world itself, not even the mirror of it. This way they can always see the relativism of the books. They will know the name of the thing is not the thing itself. They don’t use the rules in the books to replace the rules in the real world.